Ottawa

Politics on TV: Senate reform, abortion and Russian spies

Three things you should not have missed

Here are the three things you should not have missed:

  1. The Supreme Court reference on Senate reform
  2. Calling in the RCMP on abortion
  3. The Russian ambassador

The Senate reform reference:

Power Play spoke with Minister of State for Democratic Reform, Tim Uppal, who said that they gave the list of reference questions to the Supreme Court in order to “accelerate” reform after opposition delay for the sake of delay and the Quebec court reference on the topic. (Uppal was entirely wrong about opposition delay, considering that the bill hasn’t been brought forward for debate by the House Leader). Don Martin then spoke with opposition MPs Craig Scott and Sean Casey about the reference question, and while Scott was correct in that there are concerns about constitutionality, he also posited the dubious theory that Harper was avoiding Senate reform so that his party could “govern from the grave” in the Senate should they lose the next election. Casey’s theory was more plausible – that actual reform would mean sitting down with the premiers, which Harper is loath to do.

Calling in the RCMP on “live abortions”:

Power & Politics spoke with Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott, who along with two other backbenchers, wrote to the RCMP to investigate “live abortions” as murder, saying that they believed there were cases of foetuses being born during the procedure, and once they were out of the womb and legally human, their deaths could be treated as homicides. When Hannah Thibedeau challenged his facts and figures, Vellacott insisted that his numbers were accurate. Thibedeau followed up with NDP MP Niki Ashton, who said that the PM isn’t denouncing these MPs enough for her liking.

The Russian Ambassador:

As part of his series of interviews with ambassadors in Ottawa, Don Martin spoke with Russian ambassador Georgi Manedov, who has been in Canada for the past 10 years and finds us to be a romantic country that democratic Russia can learn a lot from. As today was also the day in which the sentencing hearing for Navy spy Jeffrey Delisle wrapped up, Manedov said that he learns everything about spying these days from journalists and the media, and described the Delisle incident as a “bump in the road.” Manedov added that there really wasn’t too much to be spied on in Canada, and that our countries already share information. Manedov said that the fact most Canadians don’t know about Russia is the fact that they export oil to us.

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